"Le treizième siècle était prêt pour comprendre la voix du poète de l'Ombrie; le sermon aux oiseaux clôt le règne de l'art byzantin et de la pensée dont il était l'image. C'est la fin du dogmatisme et de l'autorité; c'est l'avenement de l'individualisme et de l'inspiration,"[39] says M. Paul Sabatier. No one mocked at the sermon to the birds; no one wondered that leverets, loosed from the snare of the huntsman, should run to Francis for protection, or pheasants forsake the woods to seek a shelter in his cell; for so great an awakening had taken place in Italy that all understood the deep vein of poetry in their saint. His biographers have transmitted these various anecdotes with a tenderness and simplicity which cannot fail to impress us with the belief that Francis, like many in our own time, possessed a marked attraction for all animals, a magnetism felt with equal strength by man and beast. Love was the Orphean lute he played upon, sending such sweet melody into the world that its strains have not yet died away. Besides the feeling he had for the beautiful, the small, or the weak, there was another influence at work that made him walk with reverence over the stones, gather up the worms from the path to save them from being crushed, and buy the lambs that were being carried to market with their poor feet tied together. He saw in all things a symbol of some great truth which carried his thoughts straight to God. One day near Ancona he noticed a lamb following slowly and disconsolately a large herd of goats which made him think of Christ among the Pharisees. In pity he bought it from the goat-herd, and in triumph carried it to a neighbouring town where he preached a parable to an admiring crowd, even edifying the bishop by his piety.